I attend daily Mass. I pray every day to be a better person. I want to be a saint some day. My pastor stated that we all should strive to become a saint. And I truly want to be.
Unfortunately, I fail every day. I say to myself, “How do you espect to become a saint when I can’t even make it though one day without failing in some way?” How can I overcome my sinful ways? And how do I stay on the right track?
St. Thomas Aquinas’s answer to how to become a saint was “Will it.” If that is the case, then you are on the right track. Perhaps what is needed to to readjust your thinking about sanctity.
Saints are not people who never sinned. Saints are people who sinned but did not give into despair. They consistently repented, converted, and threw themselves upon the grace and mercy of God. The road to sainthood is not a rose-strewn path upon which one floats to God. The road is hard, rocky, and all uphill, with the cross on your back and the sacraments as provisions for the journey.
Think of your stumbles and struggles as falling under the weight of the cross and resolve to keep calling on Jesus to lift you up again. Then, while you’re stumbling and struggling, if you are able for the love of God to help others who are also trudging along the same path, you will be demonstrating the heroic virtue of a saint.
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